The Sha of Fear looms atop the Terrace, attempting to consume the pure light emanating from its center.

Pure Light

A narrow column of uncorrupted light still projects skyward from the center of the terrace. When a player stands in this light it bends, forming a protective wall that extends back from this Champion of the Light in a 'V' shape. This attracts the attention of the Sha of Fear, who fixates on the Champion.

Wall of Light
– The Champion and other players standing within the wall of light take 10% reduced damage from all sources. The wall also deflects the Sha's Breath of Fear attack.

Breath of Fear
– The Sha of Fear unleashes a horrible breath attack, inflicting 59400 Shadow damage to all enemies over 1.50 sec. Afflicted enemies are also feared for 5 sec. Players standing behind the Wall of Light are unaffected.

Eerie Skull
– The Sha throws a skull at a player's location, inflicting 8910 to 10890 Shadow damage to enemies within 0 yards of the impact point.

Ominous Cackle
– The Sha cackles ominously and transports a group of players to one of the outer shrines to battle a former guardian of the terrace.

Terror Spawn
– The Sha periodically summons a pair of Terror Spawns to attack players. A bulwark of dark energy protecting each Terror Spawn deflects spells and attacks that strike the front of the creature.

Reaching Attack
– The Sha strikes at a distant target, inflicting 50% of weapon damage as Shadow and increasing Shadow damage taken by 25% for 8 sec. The Sha uses this ability when no targets are in melee range.

Lei's Hope
– The light in the terrace seems to glow more brightly after players force the Sha to retreat to the Dread Expanse. Attack and casting speeds are increased by 15% within the Terrace of Endless Spring on subsequent attempts.

Dread Spray
– The caster rapidly fires sprays of Dread Bolts in specific directions for 8 sec. The caster gains immunity to taunt for the duration. Each spray of Dread Bolts fires in a cone in front of the caster, inflicting 50% of weapon damage as Shadow and afflicting the target for 8 sec. At 2 stacks, the Dread Spray fears the target for 2 sec.

Death Blossom
– The caster spins in a circle, unleashing a hail of bolts in all directions for 5 sec. Each bolt that strikes an enemy inflicts 10296 to 10824 Physical damage.

Sha Globe
– Globes of Sha energy are knocked out of the possessed crossbowman as he loses health. Touching a globe will consume it, inflicting 3960 Shadow damage but refilling the player's primary resource over time. If not consumed within 8 sec the globe will return to the bowman, healing him for 5% of his maximum health.

Fearless
– Defeating any of the possessed crossbowmen allows the group to return to the central terrace and grants them 60% increased damage and healing, 60% increased movement speed, and immunity to Fear effects for 30 sec.

On heroic difficulty the Sha of Fear retreats to the Dread Expanse at 66% remaining health, dragging players along with him. This watery wasteland is a place of the Sha's making where he has access to a new set of abilities.

Fading Light
– The last glimmers of light from the terrace heal players as they are extinguished, restoring 90% health and mana over 6 sec. In addition, all player cooldowns are reset.

Pure Light

The uncorrupted light from the terrace binds itself to the current champion and takes on a new form. It grows stronger, granting the champion immunity to fear and horror effects and reduces their damage taken by 30%.

Transfer Light
– The champion can use this ability to move the Pure Light to a targeted friendly player.

Implacable Strike
– The Sha unleashes an Implacable Strike in the direction of his current target that inflicts 99900 to 116100 damage to enemies up to 0 yards away.

Naked and Afraid
– The Sha strips the gear from his current target, reducing the target's armor and chance to dodge and parry by 100% for 25 sec.

Waterspout
– The Sha agitates the water under several players, creating a series of waterspouts. Each waterspout takes 1.5 sec. to form and explode, inflicting 28080 to 29520 Frost damage to enemies within 2 yds.

Huddle in Terror
– The Sha terrifies several players, causing them to cower in fear and inflicting 10800 Shadow damage every 1 sec. for 12 sec.

Submerge
– The Sha disappears below the surface of the Dread Expanse for a short time, then emerges under a random player and inflicts 87750 to 92250 Frost damage to enemies within 12 yds. The Sha summons an increasing number of Dread Spawns each time he submerges.

Dread Spawn
– This creature fixates on the current champion of the light. If a new player becomes the champion the Dread Spawn changes targets.

Comment by theBestInTheGame

Comment by Tawko

The Sha of Fear's model has been re-textured to strike more fear into you. It is now more distinguishable from the other Sha's in Pandaria. The 3D model viewer for this boss doesn't depict the model well, so here's a picture: Click me!

Note: This is also present in the dungeon journal. Link to dungeon journal entry.

Comment by DorianFyre

Lore information on the Sha for those of you who haven't been reading the quests :)

The Sha originated from the death of an Old God, Y'Shaarj (who is confirmed to be very very dead - OR MAYBE NOT as Blizz have recently suggested retconning in recent Patch 5.3 interviews). In his dying breath he cursed Pandaria with a strange energy - but a pale shadow of his true self, the source of the Sha, and it lay dormant for thousands of years.

There are only six known 'main' sha, though there were seven heads of Y'Shaarj, and similarly the tale is known as the Seven Burdens of Shaohao. This may mean that there is another Sha somewhere. David Kosak, however, said in a But Wait, There's Lore! interview that the number seven was just something they used as a 'cool storytelling number'. However, it turns out that there is indeed a Seventh Sha, and the reason we haven't heard about it until now is because Shaohao never managed to defeat it! To prevent spoilers for those who go out of the way to avoid them I'll not disclose anymore about this until later.

Pride was the Sha that the last emperor never defeated - "I thought we were better than the rest of the world, that we could solve our own problems." Seems like Shaohao is returning in some way in 5.4 to help remedy this. Who better to help seal away the Sha?

The information about Y'Shaarj is not widely known knowledge as far as we know, lorewise - only Klaxxi have shown they are aware of it. Furthermore, awareness of the Sha's existance isn't known to most of Pandaria's native residents, even the pandaren - who exclaim surprise and confusion at the mention or appearance of the Sha in many many quests. This is probably because the Sha haven't had reason to surface for a long time, as Pandaria has been very peaceful. Now that we're there, though, all havoc is breaking loose!

When Shaohao, the Last Emperor of Pandaria, fought his own fears, anger, hatred, doubts and so on - and defeated each Sha that resulted from each of those emotions (a temple situated at the sight of each battle) and buried the Sha beneath Pandaria, they began feeding off every harsh word, doubtful thought, hateful expression, waiting. This is why some Sha have greater control in different regions of Pandaria. The August Celestials knew the Sha would eventually be released, and that is why they train their monks in a certain style to deal with the specific Sha buried under their temple.

Sha of Anger - Defeated and buried at the sight of the Temple of the White Tiger located in Kun Lai.

Sha of Despair - Defeated and buried at the sight of Temple of the Red Crane located in the Krasarang Wilds.

Sha of Doubt - Defeated and buried at the Temple of the Jade Serpent located in the Jade Forest.

Sha of Fear - Defeated and buried at the current sight of the Niuzao Temple located in the Townlong Steppes. This Sha also has corrupted the majority of the Mantid, including Grand Empress Shek'zeer.

Sha of Hatred - Defeated and buried at the sight of the Temple of the White Tiger located in Kun Lai.

Sha of Violence - Defeated and buried at the sight of the Temple of the White Tiger located in Kun Lai. At some point he is imprisoned by the Shado-Pan, he is eventually freed from his cage and defeated.

In Patch 5.4, the Sha of Pride was revealed. Shaohao neglected to defeat his pride by shrouding Pandaria in the mists, thinking they were better than the rest of the world. Ultimately, Shaohao came to realise this mistake and passes on wisdom to the adventurers that proud races must admit they need help and learn to work together. "All that stands in our way.. is Pride."

Garrosh's arrogance was the last straw needed to unleash the Sha of Pride, which is said to be far more dangerous than the others combined - perhaps simply due to it's nature, or because it was undefeated by Shaohao, or both.

Edit: Added more lore on what the Sha of Fear has done.

The pandaren people knew that the Sha thrived on negative emotions and so they developed their culture and society to be more easygoing, joyful ad humble. Though it has been so many years of generation after generation being raised to be happy and forgiving that the reason why was eventually forgotten; it seems many pandaren think the Sha are just bedtime stories for children. This is more noticable in south-eastern Pandaria (as the further north-west you go, the more of an effect the Sha seem to have had on Pandaria.)

With the Alliance and Horde suddenly landing on Pandaria, the Sha have had large amounts of negative energy to feed off. Because the Sha are phyical manifestations of negative emotions, the more emotion there is, the stronger they become. The Sha of Fear is a testament to the fear experienced by every person standing on Pandaria soil; with all the warring the Horde and Alliance have caused and the fear experienced by each side and those caught in the middle, it's no wonder the Sha has has grown to such powerful influence. The Sha has used it's influence to corrupt and warp the mind of the Grand Empress of the Mantid, making her strength his own. Through her, it's will is done. This is the reason behind the mantid raiding the Serpent's Spine a hundred years early (normally it's every thousand years or so). This early invasion is the reason the yaungol have tried fleeing Townlong into Kun Lai. The Sha of Fear is a crafty piece of work. If left unchecked, it could prove infinitely more disastrous than it already is.

Comment by Jinze

The Death Blossom ability cast by the add you get transported to during Ominous Cackle is Line-of-Sightable using the pillars around the pagoda.

Comment by Yokozuna

There is only 1 Phase. Main tank pulls by running into glowing yellow light circle in front of boss. Boss only melees who is standing in that circle. When someone is standing in that circle, he forms the point of an upside down V. Anyone standing inside that V is immune to the boss's Breath of Fear. You won't receive damage or get feared.

- Breath of Fear happens every 30 seconds. Melee need to leave the add they are dps'ing with around 8-10 sec to go (5-6 if you have a sprint) in order to make sure you are inside the V in time. And I repeat *inside the V* not on the yellow line. If you're on the line you most likely will get hit. The breath will nearly 1 shot anyone who's health isn't topped off. DBM's timer is pretty spot on, also the boss's energy bar reaching 100 is what triggers the cast. His energy always rises at the same rate. The ability also looks like it's interruptible(no cast bar border), but it is NOT.

-Ominous Cackle always took a tank, a healer, and 3 dps to an outer platform. It will pick the dps and healer at random, but will always pick the tank standing in the yellow circle on the main platform. We tried having a dps stand in the yellow circle just before ominous crackle, so we could dps down the add faster with 4 dps and 1 healer, but the add just hits too hard with Shoot so we went back to letting tank get transported there. It is *essential* that everyone on the platform work at getting orbs before they disappear to heal the add. The add's Dread Spray ability does not have a cast bar, he just starts doing it. The best way we found to deal with it is to either stand in place and don't move (because he nearly never shoots it in the same direction twice in a row or even in the next couple sec), or you can stand still till you see him spray it near you, then move quickly into the area he just sprayed it and stand there. Death Blossom will be cast 1 minute after you engage the add. It does a lot of damage and is best to be LoS behind pillars, maybe even pop a personal defensive/healing CD while running to get behind the pillar. When the add dies a yellow globe appears at his body that you click to get back to the main platform. You will have a buff that makes you immune to the damage and fear from Sha's Breath of Fear, and you have a sprint, but most important a damage/healing buff called Fearless. For dps this buff is best used to get caught up on killing terror adds. You will only have the buff long enough stay out for one Breath of Fear. In fact if you killed your hunter add and got back to the main platform right after a Breath, you won't even have the buff long enough to avoid the next one.

-Terror adds spawn pretty frequently, they cannot be damaged from the front (like Courage add on Will of the Emperor), they don't move, and dont have an aggro table. Always keep an eye on the Breath of Fear timer when dps'ing these.

-Tanks must be aware at all times for when the current Sha tank gets Ominous Cackled away to a platform. A replacement tank must step into the yellow circle ASAP to tank Sha, or Sha will start spamming Reaching Attack on players, even those at the outer platforms. Thrash didnt seem to give us much trouble. It didn't require a tank swap or anything, not as bad as Chimaeron was in BWD. Once in a while it can kill the tank if he's not kept a close eye on and topped up.

That's the whole fight. It's a long fight, most likely 12-14 minutes, so Heroism can be used at the pull and again in execute range.

TLDR: Keep a tank at all times in yellow circle, dps terror adds until you have to get in the V for Breath of Fear, dps boss while in the V for a few seconds then back on terror adds, when transported to outer platform dps mob while grabbing orbs and LOS'ing Death Blossom, dps terror adds hard when you have Fearless buff, win.

Comment by Savario15

I just had a question about the Sha Globes on the outer platforms.

How large is the regen for non mana dps classes? Say rogues, warriors, dks, hunters, and monks.

We seem to be struggling a little bit, and our dps composition is a Shadow priest, boomkin, mage, warlock, hunter and ret pally. I'm wondering if having so many classes with a primary resource that wouldn't benefit from this orb is hurting us or not (I believe we're getting all the orbs that spawn, just seem about 20 seconds too slow to kill the add before the second ominous crackle).

Comment by stym

In heroic 25 mode, the Sha of Fear is stated as having a health of 1360.1 million.I believe it's the first boss topping a billion in health.

Edit: I stand corrected, Elegon already had over a billion in health. I think they inflated his health to force raid groups to gain stacks of Draw Power in order to defeat him. The Sha of Fear has a similar mechanism (Fearless)

Comment by 3xul

The Sha of Fear is the Endboss of the Terrace of Endless Springs.In 10 man mode the raid should take 2 tanks, 2 healers and 6 DDs.

You fight at two platforms against the Sha and the former guardians of the terrace. The Sha is positioned at the center of the terrace, while the guardians are placed at the outer shrines and players will be choosen by the bossmechanics to be teleportet to them.

The key element is to finish the guardian, in order to return to the main platform, before the next tank is teleported to an other guardian. If this ever happens, the Sha will wipe your group most likely one person at a time with Reaching Attack.

The Main PlatformIn the middle of the main platform is a glowing spot of pure light. The tank must stand at this point to create a V-shaped safezone for your raid with Wall of Light which spawns when a tank stands on the spot. The other mechanics are:

Once the Sha gains a full energy bar (this happens every 30 seconds), he casts Breath of Fear which deals deadly shadow damage and fears as well. All targets on the platform, who are not afflicted by Wall of Light or Fearless will be hit by this spell.Counter it by moving in time into the safezone.

Through the whole fight, the Sha summons a duo of Terror Spawn every x seconds, which can only be attacked from behind (similar to the Emperor's Courage). Those spawns attack a random area with Penetrating Bolt which deals medium damage and leaves a debuff at the target which increases the shadow damage taken. This can easily be dodged.

Some minor raid damage is dealt by a ranged attack of the Sha called Eerie Skull. This hits a random player.

The outer ShrinesEvery 90 seconds the Sha casts Ominous Cackle which chooses 5 random players (but at least 1 tank and 1 healer) and transports them to one of the outer shrines, where the corrupted guardians are. Those shrines are all the same, but the guardians have different names.It is beneficial to stand in a circle around this guardian, but the abilities will explain why:

Every few seconds the guardian shoots a cone attack Dread Spray at a random player. The first hit will only deal minor damage, but a second hit will fear the target for 2 seconds.

When the guardian takes damage he looses Sha Globe which have to be gathered by the group. If left untouched for 8 seconds, they return to the guardian and heal him for 2% of his maximum HP. Those orbs deal slightly damage, by gathering them, but restore a good amount of mana. So your tank and healer should gather them, while the DDs burn him down without cooldowns.

After a minute on the platform, the guardian casts Death Blossom which is an area attack to all within his line of sight. Simply move behind the pillars and wait the few seconds. He should be at 20% HP, when he does this ability.

Once the guardian died, a portal spawns from his corps, which allows you to return to the center and gain the buff Fearless, which increases your damage and healing dealt by 60% and makes you insanely fast. This is the best time to pull cooldowns and kill the remaining Terror Spawn. As long as this buff lasts you cannot be afflicted by Breath of Fear, so there is no need to worry about his breath upon returning.

If you killed the guardian fast enough, you return before the other half of your raid is sent to an other outer shrine. This will repeat a few times. Don't worry about the enrage timer, it's very graceful.

Comment by lightclaw

LFR:

Try not to fall asleep. Very very easy fight.

Both tanks stand on the spot of light in front of the boss. One of you will get aggro, the other just does dps until the first tank gets transported away. Ranged and heals stand behind the tank (in front of the boss.) When someone is standing on the spot, two beams of light spread out toward the entrance to the platform, making two walls of light in a V shape. Note - If the 'someone' standing on the spot of light is not a tank they will still get aggro, and the walls of light will still work. It's handy when you lose a tank at one of the pagodas (or if the tanks are clueless) and a clear headed DPS with cooldowns running can step up.

Melee needs to try to be behind the wall before the Sha does its Breath of Fear attack.

Kill the adds on the sides by getting behind their shields and dpsing them down. Be sure to get behind the wall before Breath of Fear; it will hit you out there.

If you get transported to a pagoda, kill the add you find there. Try not to stand in its arrows, hide behind a pillar when it does Death Blossom (gotta love the Last Starfighter reference) and run through the orbs to eat them up before they heal the add.

Comment by Silverado

Normal version is pretty difficult. Can only imagine the heroic version... *shudder*

Comment by Tralf

Somebody, please! Make a script or whatever to listen to the Breath of Fear!

Comment by aryon

I've formatted Lightclaw's extremely useful comments for easy copy/paste. Put these quotes into LFR chat for groups that don't know what they're doing:Tank stands on the light beam, ranged and heals behind the tank (in front of the boss.)

Melee needs to try to be behind the wall before the Sha does its Breath of Fear attack.

Kill the adds on the sides by getting behind their shields and dpsing them down. Be sure to get behind the wall before Breath of Fear; it will hit you out there.

If you get transported to a pagoda, kill the add you find there. Try not to stand in its arrows, hide behind a pillar when it does Death Blossom and run through the orbs to eat them up before they heal the add.Thanks Lightclaw. You saved our raid from more wipes. It's all about the adds.

Comment by coolguyry

Comment by violetta

Comment by Fuhlario

The Sha of Fear has a 15-minute enrage timer, after which he will go Berserk, dealing greatly increased damage and wiping your raid.

Comment by Elarink

This is one of the bosses that drop tier fourteen tokens for all classes. These are dropped in all difficulties, but the armor token that drops will be changed by the current difficulty. The token can be redeemed at a valor merchant for the token armor that goes with your class. There are multiple versions of the armor for different specs, usually a DPS, healing, and tanking version.

The tokens can be earned by the last 3 bosses in Heart of Fear, and the 2 last bosses in the Terrace of Endless Spring.

The Gloves can be obtained from Wind Lord Mel'jarak, the 4th boss in Heart of Fear.The Legs can be obtained from Amber-Shaper Un'sok, the 5th boss in Heart of Fear.The Chest can be obtained from Grand Empress Shek'zeer, the last boss in Heart of Fear.The Shoulders can be obtained from Lei Shi, the 3rd boss in Terrace of Endless Spring.The Head piece as well as an epic weapon can be obtained from the Sha of Fear, the last boss in Terrace of Endless Spring.

Depending on the difficulty of the raid your token drops on, the armor will have different stats and color.

Comment by Wazdakka

As a Sha, a spawn of the Old Gods, I notice that his quotes are very similar to those of C'thun and Yogg-Saron. The same kind of ideas, like "darkness will envelope you", "you will ... ", and "you will die".

Comment by kam44

Screen shot 1 of 6...damn! I feel bad for the person playing in that resolution :(

Comment by DagothUr

Jeez! 1.6 BILLION health and this guy isn't even the end game boss. wonder how much HP Garrosh will have when it comes time to face him.

Comment by Pallapower

i was just wondering, but as a tank, is this as easy in normal and HC as LFR?

Because it is extremely easy in LFR

Comment by karachu

Here is the ingame command for the breath quote, I couldn't post the others because there are too many of them:/script PlaySoundFile("Sound/Creature/Shaoffear/Vo_Tes_Fear_Spell_Breath_01.Ogg")

Comment by Ipwnwowhead

Guide for Heroic Sha : do not get hit by breath of fear, or death blossom. stay spread and there is no reason to kill the adds. IN phase 2, throw light to person with kill adds, move from IMplaceable strike, move from waterspout and its GG

Comment by belechannas

Comment by Mysteriosf2p

Sha of Fear leads to Sha of Anger, Sha of Anger leads to Sha of Hatred, Sha of Hatred leads to...what? No Sha of Suffering? :o

Comment by Boomboy

As he says when you engage him,

"You will know fear!"

The only thing se fear is that se have to farm him because he just drops gold so often...

Otherwise, badass model congratz blizz!

Comment by Beace

My guild went back and cleared every T14 HC on 10-man this week. Most of us are in the ilvl ~545 range, so we obviously overgeared all the content.

Sha of Fear HC is really the only T14 boss that can't be zerged down (at least until next expansion). You have to have a working strategy to handle and kite the adds, even if your raid dps is 3x as high as it was when guilds did it during T14.

Took us a couple of pulls to get it done, these are the key points I found:

1) Have a designated player to always stand in the exact middle of the room (healer is probably best for it) with the Lightning Ball. This ensures all adds will reach that player at the same time, and they will be bunched up quite nicely for future kiting.

2) Having permanent slows on the adds helps immensely. We were struggling, but as soon as we got a DK in to keep his diseases up on them full time, the kiting became much easier. Instead of having to make a 1-2 second decision on where to throw the ball next, you get more like 4-5. It was actually our DK tank that did it, he'd just taunt the boss to get the debuff on himself, then he'd go on the adds while our Paladin tank took over boss again.

Once those 2 points are covered, you can choose how you want to spread out around the designated guy in the middle. We were basically spread out in a rough half circle, but I know standing in a triangle is popular as well.

Comment by Everliving14

Comment by Macamirunni

Comment by Mormolyce

Anyone else think his voice sounds kind of like Shredder in the original TMNT cartoon?

Comment by jetfire158

For those of you who hoping to get the "Fearless" title:

I will be discussing Heroic mechanics here, since others have already done a fine job of explaining Normal mode, though at this point if your group is geared enough Normal mode should pretty much be a cake walk.

However, keep in mind that the Heroic version of this fight can NOT simply be zerged. I don't care if your group's average ilvl is 570-580, you will wipe if you ignore the mechanics, especially during phase 2.

Phase 1 can be very simple if your DPS is high enough, since the boss will move into Phase 2 as soon as his health hits 50%. In a group with everyone at least ilvl 550, the Terror Spawns can simply be ignored. Depending on DPS, you might not even see a single, full Ominous Cackle phase. However, if you do, just be sure to be getting behind the pillars when and if Death Blossom goes off, and preferentially be running into Sha Globes, though that part isn't as important if your group is geared enough (since even if the add gets healed, you'll simply burn right through the heals).

Phase 2 is where most groups wipe. For this, you'll need to make sure that your group isn't too melee-heavy, or this phase will be very difficult. For example if it's a 10-man, make sure that at least 3 of your 6 DPS are ranged classes.

Now in addition to avoiding all the AoEs on the ground, the most important things to pay attention to are the adds he will summon each time he casts Submerge. Dread Spawns will appear in the distance and fixate upon whoever has the Pure Light buff, which will be placed on a random player before he dips underwater. These NEED to be slowed and burned down ASAP, as they will move faster and faster due to Gathering Speed and WILL one-shot their targets with Eternal Darkness if they reach melee range.

Therefore, the person with the light buff needs to pass it to someone who is farther away from the add using the Transfer Light extra action button that will appear on their screen, preferably a healer or a ranged DPS, so that they can continue healing or killing the add even while keeping their distance from it. Even so, the adds' movement speed stacks will reset every time the light buff is passed, so make sure your ranged and healers are tossing it back and forth among themselves until the adds are dead.

In addition, healers need to be paying attention to whoever gets targeted by Huddle in Terror, since they will be feared and unable to use any defensive CDs or do anything at all. If they are not healed, they WILL be one-shot. On the flip side of that, people need to make sure they aren't running too far away from the group and getting out of the healers' range.

Tank swap mechanics are fairly standard, however this cannot be one-tanked due to Naked and Afraid.

Overall, the most important thing here is to make sure those Phase 2 adds die as fast as possible. If your group can get that down pat, you're almost guaranteed to have this encounter and your "Fearless" title in the bag. Good luck and most of all, have fun!

Comment by Kharnamatic

Why is the heroic fight so complicated. The writeup on icy veins is longer than my lecture notes